iraq roundup

...which seems to support earlier reports of the so-called "Shock and Awe" bombardment. I have serious reservations about htis strategy, especially if undertaken as part of an invasion that lacks UNSC sanction. However accurate the ordnance or well-intentioned the targeting by the US military, it seems self-evident that a massive airstrike on Baghdad has the potential to inflict heavy civilian casualties.

Almost every day, I look at my precious daughters and imagine that somewhere in Baghdad, there's some poor schmuck who has a couple of kids he loves as much as I do mine, and that somewhere there's an American bomb with their name on it. I can't even imagine what losing my house and my girls to a bomb would do to me. Now, it's one thing if the US is forced to defend itself--tragic, regrettable, but necessary. But I see absolutely no reason whatever to believe that Bush has considered any path other than invasion even for a moment. I deeply resent the fact that Bush's policies are going to make this nation a murderer of children, when alternatives exist. Robust--even expanded--inspections are one possible example, or even limited airstrikes against any target the Iraqis refuse to allow inspectors access to. And the beauty of those alternatives is that neither precludes a more large-scale attack at a later time, should one prove necessary.

We must confront, contain, and deter Iraq--indeed, however imperfectly, the world has been doing so. I refuse to condone the sacrifice of Iraqi children on the altar of Bush's war fever, given that there's little evidence that leaving them alone poses much of a threat to our own children (and indeed, it's quite likely that attacking Iraq will spawn terrorism and nuclear proliferation, not deter it).